The Blackmailed Bride

‘I don’t think you’re nervous,’ he cut in smoothly. ‘I think that under that wide-eyed candour you’re as hard as nails. Did you arrange to meet Gonzalez here? Or did he perhaps ask you to pick something up for him? Does he know we’re on to him? Well?’

‘It won’t do you any good to bully me.’ She saw a flicker of amazement chase across his strong-boned features and wondered if she was being daring or just plain stupid to antagonise him. The truth was, she couldn’t help herself; something about this man made her want to score points…

‘I am not a bully!’ he refuted in an irritated steely drawl.

She smiled in polite disbelief and heard what might have been his even white teeth grinding. ‘And it won’t do you any good,’ she elaborated. ‘Because I’ve not the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’ She shook her head so emphatically that the hood of her sweat top slipped off her head.

One dark brow rose as her silver-blonde tresses tumbled free from the loose knot she’d hastily confined them in on her head. Her stomach lurched as, with studied insolence, those electric-blue eyes moved over her body pausing overly long in significant areas.

Kate’s first instinct was to cover herself with her hands. She almost immediately saw how ludicrous and demeaning her response to the earthy sexual appraisal was, and let her hands fall away; in doing so she saw the strands of dark hair caught in her fist.

Unobtrusively she wriggled her fingers to dislodge them; it didn’t seem wise to remind someone with such violent inclinations of the no doubt painful moment when her fingers had become blindly entangled in his hair—lush, silky hair, she recalled. Her fingertips tingled uncomfortably as her brain replayed the sensation. With a head of hair like that, she thought practically, he wasn’t going to miss the little bit she had ripped out.

‘Or maybe you knew he wasn’t here… Maybe this is a bit of private enterprise…? You were taking advantage of his absence to help yourself?’ He fired the fresh volley of questions at her like bullets without removing his unnerving gaze from her face for even a second. ‘What was she about to take out of the drawer, Serge?’

It was spooky. This man it seemed didn’t feel the need to blink—but then he probably had iced water running through his veins, not blood, she thought, rubbing her arms where a rash of goosebumps had broken out.

‘It’s true I didn’t come here by accident exactly,’ Kate admitted with discomfort as the silent second man, moving with surprising speed for one so large, headed towards the chest of drawers.

Apprehension made Kate’s pulse rate soar, an acceptable thing to happen to the most cool-headed of individuals, given the circumstances; the problem was, Kate knew it was only part of the story—there was in fact a much more significant factor. The main reason for the state of near-collapse of her nervous system was—that man! She glared angrily up at the stranger’s dark saturnine face and her insides tightened another painful notch.

The man projected raw sexuality like a force field; she’d never come across anything like it! However, now was no time to analyse her curiously strong reaction to her cold-eyed interrogator; she needed to be clear headed and focused.

Being clear-headed wasn’t as easy as it sounded when you couldn’t rid yourself of a nasty, nagging suspicion. What if Susie wasn’t the only Anderson who was attracted by danger…? Especially when it came so spectacularly packaged. Oh, God, I’m so shallow! In the future she definitely wouldn’t be making so free with her superior sniffs and pitying looks, Kate decided, swallowing a large dose of humility.

‘I came here to retrieve something, but it doesn’t belong to this Mr Gonzalez. It’s…mine.’ She kept her voice cool enough but she couldn’t stop her eyes darting nervously in the direction of the bulky figure who was sifting through the contents of the drawer, which were now scattered on the ground.

A combination of nerves and the heat in the room made Kate’s thin sweatshirt cling damply to her back; sweat pooled uncomfortably in the hollow between her breasts. Conscious of the constant presence of those piercing blue eyes drilling into her skull, she licked her lips nervously.

She’d studied enough guilty people to know she was displaying all the classic signs of guilt herself.

‘She was holding this, I think, Javier.’

Kate couldn’t stop herself from lunging wildly forwards for the parcel of photographs as they passed between the two men. ‘They’re mine!’ she yelled.

For several stubborn seconds she resisted the compulsion of fingers like iron which closed mercilessly around her wrist before her stiffly clenched fingers unfurled. Tears of pain and frustration standing out in her eyes, she glared resentfully up at her persecutor.

‘You’ve no right…’ Her voice faded away as the one she now knew was called Javier slid one long finger under the sealed opening of the package. Paralysed by horror, she watched as he withdrew one glossy print and held it up.

Kate’s face flamed as his clinical glance moved from the photo in his hand to her and back again before he slid it back in. He pulled out a strip of negatives and held it up to the light. His nostrils flared and his lips quivered faintly in an attitude of fastidious distaste as he briefly viewed the images revealed.

The other man shot him a question in Spanish which he replied to in the same language—the reply made the other man laugh in surprise. Kate’s hands balled into fists as she gritted her teeth; every natural feeling in her rebelled at the idea of these two sniggering at her Susie’s expense.

‘Do you do this sort of thing for a living, or is it just a hobby?’

He thinks they’re pictures of me! Kate’s jaw dropped. In other circumstances she might have felt flattered to have her body confused with that of her lovely younger sister, but on this occasion it just made her flip. Where moments before she had felt embarrassed and defensively protective of Susie, now she experienced a flash of blazingly hot rage.

If her adversary hadn’t possessed startlingly swift reactions, her closed-fisted blow would have made contact with his lean cheek. Kate, who had never felt the need to resort to anything as crude as brute force in her life experienced a moment of confusion and shock at her actions before the overpowering need to escape overwhelmed her.

‘Let me go!’ she shrieked, landing a kick on his shins before she subsided her eyes flashing, her breath coming in short gasps. Her nostrils quivered; underneath the light expensive male fragrance he wore she could smell the clean-washed, spicy, masculine scent that she’d noticed before she’d even laid eyes on him—it had bothered her then, and it bothered her more now.

‘Now you show your true colours,’ came the disdainful observation. ‘Cool down, little cat. I have no interest in your sleazy snaps; you can have them…’

Kate felt so pathetically relieved by this contemptuous information that she could have wept. Trying to retain a semblance of dignity, still panting from her exertions, she looked pointedly at his dark fingers still encircling her wrist and did her best to ignore the languid contempt in his tone. She couldn’t afford to lose her temper; he had the photos and for Susie’s sake she had to get them, even if this involved a bit of humiliation.

With an unpleasant, sneery sort of smile that made Kate’s fingers itch to remove it from his smug face, he released her hand and mockingly inclined his glossy head. ‘…When I have the information I require,’ he completed the white crocodile smile fading completely.

Kate’s shoulders slumped as her eyes stayed trained on the photos held tantalisingly out of reach. She was fast coming to the conclusion he was playing cat and mouse games with her and, the awful part was, there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

‘I don’t know anything.’ She sighed wearily as she rubbed her tender wrist; the imprint of those strong brown fingers seemed to be branded into her flesh.

‘Cut the innocent act. You obviously know him, unless you send pornographic pictures of yourself to total strangers…?’ he sneered.

Pink spots of outrage appeared on her smooth cheeks. ‘They are not pornographic, they’re…they’re tasteful,’ she finished, unable to repress a weak grimace at the memory of the photos.

‘Sure they’re art,’ he drawled insultingly. ‘What’s the connection? Is he your lover, or your supplier?’

‘Supplier?’ she exclaimed. Her eyes widened as her frown of incomprehension lifted. ‘Drugs!’ Oh, God, what have I walked into? Had Luis Gonzalez tried to muscle in on the big boys? Were these men here to teach him a lesson, or worse…? ‘This is a m-misunderstanding,’ she stuttered. ‘I know nothing about any drugs.’

‘Of course you don’t.’

Her eyes filled with tears of sheer frustration. She blinked hard to stop them spilling over. If she could weep like Susie—it was one of life’s mysteries how Susie cried so picturesquely—tears might get her somewhere, but she couldn’t see this man being touched by her own blotchy face and runny nose.

‘Why won’t you believe me? Do I look like a drug addict or something?’

‘And what do they look like?’ If he’d been so damned good at spotting the signs, Javier reflected bitterly, his sister would have been spared those agonising months of rehabilitation.

‘You should know. It’s your business, not mine.’

He went rigid. Not a muscle in his face moved, but his eyes blazed like twin points of fury. ‘Women like you are incomprehensible! Why do you protect him?’ he demanded. ‘Is it fear, or some misplaced sense of loyalty? A man like that will pull you down to his level, and when you get there he’ll leave you…’

Without any warning he grabbed her arm and, swiftly rolling up the sleeve of her top, ran one long finger softly over the blue-veined inner aspect of her left wrist and forearm. Under the light his accessory helpfully directed over the area, his keen eyes searched her fair blemishless skin for tell-tale marks.

Kate shivered helplessly as tingling arrows of electricity shot up her arm. Instinctively she started to pull back and then stopped as a strange heavy lethargy stole over her. Her leaden-lidded eyes were riveted on the image of his dark fingers on her skin; heat travelled like a flash-flood, bathing her entire body; the distant buzzing in her head got closer.

She only started breathing again when he released her.

‘Satisfied now?’ With dignity she rolled down her sleeve.

‘Not quite.’

Her stomach muscles clenched as she saw his intention. Her angry dark eyes clashed with his emotionless gaze for several seconds before she conceded defeat.

‘Let me,’ she said sarcastically as she turned back the sleeve that covered her right arm. Chin lifted defiantly, she thrust out her arm in front of him.

She waited for him to look away, embarrassed, shocked or maybe repelled—she’d seen all the reactions which, to her mind, were wildly out of proportion to the small puckered area of skin, pinker than the rest of her skin, that lay along the inside of her arm, just above her elbow joint—there was another, smaller and less prominent area on her shoulderblade which the plastic surgery had not quite been able to conceal.

It was amazing how such a small blemish could throw some people and make them look at you differently. Kate had decided a long time ago that other people’s squeamishness was their problem, not hers, and she didn’t go out of her way to conceal or reveal the childhood scars she still bore from a domestic accident.